This invention relates to a stopper for bottles containing liquid which can be inserted into the neck opening of any type of liquid medication bottle. Bottle stoppers fall into two main types including the open style and the closed style. Open style bottle stoppers or adapter plugs for bottles containing liquid substances are typically the type manufactured and marketed by Apothecary Products, LLC, Burnsville, Minn. as Item Nos. 75125, 75126, 75127 and 75128. These open style stoppers are available in several different bottle neck opening sizes—typically 20 mm, 24 mm and 28 mm and are injection molded in one piece from low-density rigid polyethylene. These stoppers are formed with outer ridges which friction press fit against the inside of the bottle neck's opening and have a central hole which can accept an oral/enteric tipped syringe. Once the stopper adapter is inserted into the bottle neck opening, the user can insert the oral syringe tip into the central opening to withdraw the prescribed liquid oral dosage that is usually one to five milliliters utilizing the oral/enteric tipped syringe. An open style stopper adapter slows the release of fluid flowing out of the bottle but is not a child safety stopper adapter because fluid can still flow out of the bottle, and a child can still mistakenly or accidentally drink or suck from the bottle through the central stopper adapter opening. As such, the open style adapter realistically is not a safety sealed bottle stopper adapter whose key purpose is to prevent accidental child poisoning and overdosing.
In an effort to improve upon these open style stopper adapters, various prior art self-sealing bottle closures have been conceived. U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,752,965, 6,361,744, 6,030,582 and 6,030,582 all to Levy disclose various self-sealing bottle closures. Also, U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,459,312 and 7,438,552 to Manera et al. disclose press-in type bottle adapters. Lastly, U.S. Pat. No. 7,128,228 to Collins also discloses a container closure. Levy further perfected his closures into a commercial stopper marketed by Andwin Corporation, Woodland Hills, Calif. Manera et al. perfected his bottle adapter into a commercial product marketed by Comar Inc. Buena, N.J.
Both the Levy commercial device and the Manera et al. commercial device utilize a built-in check valve that is supposed to be in a normally biased closed position to prevent fluid from leaking or dripping out through the stopper adapter when the bottle is inverted and prior to opening the built-in check valve by the oral syringe tip. In actual practice, the commercial Manera et al. product has limitations because the product's complete rigid plastic construction makes it difficult to provide a non-leaking duckbill valve that also readily accepts and provides a leakproof sealable engagement with an I.V. (intravenous) luer slip tip syringe. The Levy product has been more commercially successful, but the Levy stopper's main shortcoming is that the stopper also readily accepts and provides a leakproof sealable engagement with the smaller dimensioned I.V. luer slip tip syringes. Many hospitalized or at-home child patients are often administered both oral syringe liquid medications into the mouth and I.V. syringe medications into an I.V. catheter. Except for the size differences, an I.V. luer tip syringe does not look much different from an oral/enteric syringe, and these misapplications are possible and especially likely in home application settings.
A closed system safety sealed bottle stopper that will indicate to the user that the stopper is only to be used with an oral syringe and not an I.V. luer slip tip syringe would be most useful in preventing misuse and misapplication. Misapplication refers to what happens when a medical device intended for one purpose is inadvertently used for another purpose or application. More specifically, I.V. luer slip tip syringes are intended for I.V. vascular system use and not for oral use. Likewise, oral syringes are intended for oral use only and not for I.V. use. It would be most helpful to have a closed system safety sealed bottle stopper to prevent the inadvertent syringe aspiration and administration of liquid oral medication into an infant's or child's I.V. catheter. Even a small dosage of liquid oral medication into an infant's or child's vascular system via an I.V. catheter can have catastrophic results.
Toward the prevention of such an aforementioned situation as well as others, the safety sealed bottle stopper has been conceived.